Three years in the making, 20 years after the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins, ‘Secrets of the Penguins’ will tell a brand new, world-first story on the charismatic, plucky and sentient birds at the other end of the Earth. Using newly developed technology, world-class scientific research and unprecedented access, National Geographic will unlock the secrets of the species that make their home in surprising and challenging landscapes around the world.
Over three episodes, the series unlocks previously untold stories and revelatory behaviors from global penguin societies, quick to feel love, hate or fear. Antarctica’s strong, powerful but sensitive emperors battle to survive on the dangerous front line of climate change. The street-smart African and little blue penguins live in cities, deserts and beyond, relying on tenacious and “talkative” adolescents to forge new paths into the unknown. Powerful modern themes emerge among the macaronis and chinstraps of wild South Georgia, from strong female leadership to diversity, crime and extreme bravery. Their moving narratives will astonish and inspire, showing penguins to be more like us than we ever realized before.
“In the Secrets series we try to forge an even more intimate and emotional connection with nature – to illuminate how these amazing creatures think, how they feel, how they communicate, how they function as complex societies and cultures”
The new series will be released on Disney+ and the National Geographic channel. No release date has yet been announced, but it’s likely to be Earth Day (22 April) 2025.
